


His Song

by kaytmrn



Category: JO1 (Japan Band), Produce 101 (Japan TV)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Repressed Memories, Short One Shot, Yonaruki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:40:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23597737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaytmrn/pseuds/kaytmrn
Summary: Sho just wants to die already, but not until he can remember something that he chose to forget after Ruki left him.
Relationships: Shiroiwa Ruki/Yonashiro Sho
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	His Song

For Yonashiro Sho, the world has become an increasingly difficult place to live in.

It finally comes to this. He decides to die today.

He makes sure he finishes his last bottle of whiskey before he leaves. A neighbor who’s walking her dog sees him drinking on his porch, “I know you’ve been drinking since last night, Yonashiro-san.”

Sho just stares at the woman and sticks his tongue out, mocking her, and her dog.

The neighbor retorts quickly, “You’re a crazy man. Don’t you ever come near my daughter!”

He won’t. He doesn’t care. He is ready to die. But before that, he needs to catch the bus.

 _That woman can never understand,_ Sho thinks. She’s one of the new ones.

The old neighbors are mostly gone, moved, and the privileged ones are upgrading for better lives. Some who couldn’t afford food and rent are dead or living in the streets. The days when someone asks him how he is, and he would say _“never been better”_ , are long gone.

He is fast walking to the bus stop, where the sun meets his eyes there, blinding him. Shortly, the bus arrives as he reaches there. Sho is now almost 30, but his body is still agile enough to heave the weight of solitude and sadness in him.

A younger fellow gives up his seat for him. Sho nods to imply his gratitude to the boy. That chap thinks he is old. Sho asks himself inside his head, _Am I?_

As the bus melds into the morning crawl, he looks outside to see men and women, welcoming the new day, dressed so neatly, their faces stained with light and life, comfortably ensconced in their fast cars. Their faces tell him a thousand things, of the past that he has too. He has met many people like that before and his feeling towards them doesn't change from then until now; he hates them. He hates how happy they always look, and how he's not. Yet, he wants to be like them.

The bus makes a quick turn, and Sho gets woken up from his deep thought by the sound of his guitar that falls to the ground. The guitar that belonged to Shiroiwa Ruki. He carries it around wherever he goes. That is, ever since its true owner couldn’t take care of his guitar anymore. He feels bad for not holding on to it tightly enough. _Ruki would be mad_ _at me if he knew_ , he thinks.

Sho suddenly remembers where he was heading and when he is going to die.

The place he’s heading has become his favorite place. It helps him to remember him, and the rest would become a fog. It is peaceful there. So there he was, carefully lifting his feet so he won’t step on others’ tombs, walking to meet a beautiful man he adores who’s buried in the ground. He reaches out to replace the wilted flowers with fresh ones that he brings along.

He takes out the guitar that he also brings along from its case. He just holds it. He can’t bear to play it anymore. Besides, it’s not his to play. But holding on to it helps him remember.

_How can a very charming and energetic musician die so young?_

They met in high school around a decade ago. Ruki convinced Sho to move to Tokyo after they graduated. They wanted to be professional musicians. Sho was worried, but Ruki promised a life of comfort to live in the city: far superior than anything else, he once said. After arriving in Tokyo, they both realized it wasn’t easy to make a living there, to find a stage to sing and play guitars on, but Ruki’s promise about those “better days” teased him to hold on.

 _“What we can’t see, gives us hopes,”_ The late musician once said to Sho. Sho understood what he said, and he looked forward to fulfilling his hopes that he couldn’t see on the horizon at that moment.

The two started performing as a duet partner in a very small bar in Shinjuku. The bar was never full, but they got a few regular customers who would get so drunk, they carelessly threw their money to the two young singers which they both happily received. One to two years later, the two started to gain “fans” who would come to the bar only because they wanted to see them perform. Who wouldn’t love to spend their nights with cheap alcohol and two very soothing vocals mixed with beautiful strumming of their guitars? But all good things don’t last.

Ruki was involved in a car accident. It was the moment where the good life was slipping away from Sho’s hands.

Soon, it was Sho alone who stood on that stage, shuttling between the bar and the hospital to take care of Ruki who was in a coma.

The smell of alcohol and sweat followed him as he sat uncomfortably with the sterile smell of the hospital. The nurses soon got used to his smell, it was a sign for them to tell that Sho was present. The kind nurses who pitied the young bloke would sometimes give him a cup of hot tea to warm himself up every time he visited, or a cup ramen, even, if he was lucky.

Sho would sit next to Ruki’s bed, watching his wasted form, and believed that life would return to his sunken, expressionless face.

“I finished my song,” Sho whispered, “I played it tonight on stage. They liked it. Although, Sugai-san teased me and said he liked your song better than mine. Ruki, I can’t wait for you to hear it. So come back soon.”

“Speaking of Sugai-san, he was sweet,” Sho continued despite the cold silence from his boyfriend, “He let me finish early so I can visit you here, and he still paid me full time,” a tear came from his face.

He began to let himself cry, finally, since the accident happened. He could taste the saltiness at the edge of his mouth. He suddenly had a thought,

“We’ve had enough money to record our songs if we want to. So let’s find a studio and make a CD! We’ll play them every day, every night. We’ll play them so loud until our neighbors can hear, they’ll love it! They’ll love it so hard they will ask for a copy of our CD I’m sure of it!”

But Sho wasn’t a good persuader as Ruki. The convincing didn’t work.

He suddenly remembers. A part of the lyrics to the song that Ruki wrote. That one song that Sho loved so much.

**_“During unlimited time, I walked with you, the two of us. The sun was still blind, I can’t even see tomorrow..”_ **

He chuckles, thinking, “Such cheesy lyrics,” Sho murmurs.

With the sudden passing of the man that he loves, Sho started wanting to forget all the unhappy things. Before he knows it, he can’t also remember the happy things either. He tried as he might, but he can’t ever recall the memory, what he feels, in all its detail. Slowly, he can’t quite remember things at all, except maybe his name and one promise that he made with Ruki: to always be by his side.

He just sat there with Ruki’s guitar. Today, he remembers him, which was enough for him. He feels lucky. Most of the time, it is hard to do so.

Staring at the damp ground, he feels his presence there somehow. He imagines that he would rise to embrace him. But no, he remains as a part of the earth, buried inside the bustle of life around him.

**_“On the last night just the two of us, we’ll close the curtains on this stage, before this all becomes a memory, wash it away in a cold rain, because we cannot ever return again.”_ **

There, he remembers another part of the lyrics that Ruki wrote. He is relieved, and he wishes to die today because he remembers.

He remembers his words too:

 _“This old, incapacious, bar will soon turn into a huge hall full of audience. I’m sure of it. We just need to keep playing,”_ Ruki assured him during the night where Sho was distressed by his career.

When Sho was feeling down, he didn't have to ask. Ruki could read him like a book and he would ask him to smoke on their veranda. He remembers, that night the sky was so clear, they could see the stars blinking. He hoped that night could last forever. 

Sho chose to end everything that night, to join the love of his life, to finally be by his side again. He has his regrets, but he was happy. That night, unlike before, the rain came and washed away all the goods there ever was.

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics of "Ruki's song" stated in this story was really written by Mr. Shiroiwa himself. He sang it in his Produce 101 Japan 1 minute PR/intro video :)


End file.
